More than 12,800 insurance claims amounting to more than $160 million have been lodged by residents and businesses in the Townsville region.

However, the financial impact on farmers in the state's interior may not be known for weeks as rural communities from Longreach to Charters Towers, and north to Kowanyama on Cape York Peninsula, remain surrounded by floodwaters.

Drought-stricken graziers, who are estimated to have lost a staggering 300,000 head of cattle, have been using helicopters to find their surviving cattle isolated on high-ground.

About 1,700 Townsville properties have been damaged in the floods.

Some graziers have reported seeing piles of up to 500 head of dead cattle piled up in paddock corners after becoming weakened and disoriented.

The federal government has opened up grant funding, and the state government on Saturday extended its disaster assistance to several more local government areas, as well as primary producers in Winton.

The Bureau of Meteorology has warned the flood waters in the north west could take days to recede.